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E-mail letters, January 18, 2011

I couldn’t disagree more with The Daily Sentinel’s Jan. 16 editorial advising earners to go out and spend the added net pay they will receive from the recent tax cut compromise.

The best advice is to save it as per almost all the leading personal financial advisers. They say pay yourself first: either add to savings or pay down debt.

In any case, our current financial straits are the result of over-spending and over-borrowing. Also, recent retail sales increases are reported to be mostly for flat-screen TVs, iPhones and other electronic gadgetry, mostly made outside the United States. On the other hand, furniture and major appliance sales (mostly made in the U.S.) are down due to the floundering real estate market. Increasing spending now will have minimal improvement to the economy until the real estate bubble is resolved.

There is an even more compelling reason for earners to save this money: It is part of the Social Security premium deduction that is used to build the Social Security fund. At least in theory, your and your employer’s contributions helps determine your future Social Security income (see the Social Security web site).

It’s interesting the same congressmen who insisted on this gimmick are the same ones who insist Social Security needs no reform and are adamantly against personal, tax-free savings/retirement accounts as a way to ensure retirement funds for future generations.

Roland Reynolds
Grand Junction

Herzog’s distaste for
Sarah Palin is palpable

Denny Herzog, that crack ex-reporter, expounder of facts and retired executive editor of The Daily Sentinel, just cannot get those facts straight. So “unstraight,” as it were, that the Sentinel had to print a “Getting It Right” regarding his Jan. 16 column. Shame on Herzog, for a couple of reasons.
First, he twice said Sarah Palin put “crosshairs over” Gabrielle Giffords’ photo. Perhaps he was getting this fact from the Daily Kos or some such favorite leftist organization.
Second, he twice dumpd on Sarah Palin by slyly saying “none of us know whether Sarah Palin’s use of crosshairs … caused Loughner to go berserk. Nor does anyone know whether it had anything to do with it at all.” Nice dodge, Denny, but the point was made.

He later dumped again with the second crosshairs allegation and the “foundational freedom” to do so in the Constitution. And the jab with that comment was: “It allows you to do that, just as it allows your detractors to write about you in a manner you find unbecoming and about which you complain, with much volume and frequency.”
After he has implicated Palin as much as possible, he then goes on about First Amendment “responsibilities” and such. His distaste for Palin is palpable and he does a nice job of blaming, but not blaming, her for a nut-case’s actions that had nothing whatsoever to do with political “crosshairs” that were used by the left as well.
Bring back Gary Harmon’s column! I don’t recall ever seeing his name in a “Getting It Right” correction.
Creighton Bricker
Grand Junction

Health care law
can’t be repaired

I respectfully disagree with The Daily Sentinel editorial headline from Jan. 18, “Repair rather than repeal,” but not necessarily with the article itself.

The Obamacare law is so flawed, not only constitutionally but fiscally and operationally, for exactly the reasons you state (and many more not stated) that it cannot be “repaired,” it must be repealed.

Unfortunately, I agree that it will not be repealed by this Congress, again for the very reasons you state, but that does not mean it should be, or even can be, “repaired.”

After the House members do their symbolic “repeal,” they must then effectively shelve it by not funding it for the remainder of this congressional term. When the Senate (and maybe the president) is changed in 2012 ,it can then be repealed if most of it has not been implemented. Then we can start over and maybe, just maybe, get it right for once.

The so called “small bill” that was being touted as an alternative to Obamacare back in the beginning of the debate would be a good place to start the new discussion after the 2012 election.
Jim Gesick
Montrose